17 comments:

draytonbird
said...

That is an extraordinarily good talk and a joy to listen to. It really upset me. I've been trying to say many, many of these things for years - but sadly "What often was said but ne'er so well expressed" - well, by me,. anyhow.

Finally someone has the balls to say on a major conference platform what I've been droning on about to colleagues and clients for years, as the industry has become ever more drunk on social media kool-aid. Fantastic

Excellent speech, but somewhat still missing the mark on what to do with digital. You confuse social and engagement with digital, and assume guilt by association. The damage done by the gurus selling digital as the engagement medium is in fact impacting this perception. Yes, expecting relationship, engagement and connection is at best a gamble, at worse simply delusional. But this doesn't mean digital cannot help brands grow. Digital channels can offer great advertising placements. Take China, where I work, the power of online video pre-roll advertising is massive (some of the largest shows have almost as many viewers online as they do on TV). Tablet advertising is proving extremely powerful to reach a more affluent class. As for programmatic buying, as scary as it might sound, this is still the most scientific, opinion free way to practice targeting (look alike targeting is delivering way above average results for example). Interruption marketing can work on digital; Beware of throwing the baby with the bathwater when it comes to digital, only looking at it as a participation channel is becoming prey to the nonsense you describe.The fight is the science of interruption vs the cult of participation. Not traditional vs digital media.

Ha! Fair point - what I am (clumsily) trying to say is that we have plenty of evidence of the impact of advertising as an unprompted exposure (what has been referred to as "interruption" over the last few years). There is science and data that backs up the "old" ways of advertising, and they still apply. Not only does it work cognitively, it also scales and reaches.On the other hand, we have plenty of advocates of "participation" marketing, deciding that consumers are now fully in power and that all we need is their permission and engagement - with very little evidence it actually works to grow brands.Not sure I've bettered my case...

When I saw they had killed the baby due to changing for changing's sake, I knew I would be reading about it here. "We want to show our consumers who they are" Advertising needs to fuck off and die. Just show me the god damn product in an entertaining fashion.

Oh, yeah. I saw it on TV the other night. Had no idea what it was for, turned down the sound and went back to the crossword. Just didn't "engage me in a conversation about their brand."Maybe they should bring back "Cop Rock".

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